A masshole. That explains a lot. I'll echo Jakal's statement that an even hand of smack when there's a gaming issue is a good idea, but blind hatred will mean we won't bother with a GESC Radio episode 2. Can't wait to see how this turns out.

As an example, I think Luke Smith, Shane Bettenhausen, or even Arthur Gies is about the right amount of snark. Anything beyond that and it ceases to be entertaining.

So is this thing gonna be a gaming in general thing? Just log on and dish about which game is the hottest? I think it would be cool to do a thread spotlight thing, maybe invite posters on a busy thread to drop in and weigh in on whatever game it is.

To differentiate yourselves from the myriad other podcasts, I would certainly try to keep it related to GESC as much as possible (with maybe a segment for the latest news, when that doesn't cross-over into GESC territory).

Maybe highlighting good discussions/posts on the forums of late might be a thought.

To differentiate yourselves from the myriad other podcasts, I would certainly try to keep it related to GESC as much as possible (with maybe a segment for the latest news, when that doesn't cross-over into GESC territory).

Maybe highlighting good discussions/posts on the forums of late might be a thought.

A GESC centric focus would be nice. It'll be too insider baseball for most listeners, but who cares. There's so many gaming podcasts already, we'll need a unique voice. I like the idea of different posters guest calling in via skype to join the conversation.

I, for one, want to hear the voice behind the handle in all its unabated glory.

I always imagine everyone sounding like the comic-book-guy from The Simpsons.

Mortus sounds like he could do a good impression...

I think news and reviews should probably be lower on the topic list (though ghost55 does a good job with his reviews in the random thoughts thread so they shouldn't be excluded) if for no other reason than every gaming podcast (and site) ever covers those. Many of the people here have a higher level of ability to provide discourse on gaming topics than your average site/podcast so I'd definitely like to hear thoughts on game design, theory and the requisite gratuitous smack.

I maintain that there are fundamental conceptual issues with a GESC-centric podcast which aren't deal-breakers, but do need to be addressed.

Much of the commentary here is inherently already distilled from a given source... for example, let's say a dev news release. That source presents facts which are worth listening to informed podcaster commentary on (we'll assume the podcasters in question are informed), and you aren't really adding much noise to the signal in transit. However, once you take that discussion to an open forum, you get completely moronic commentary mixed in with the good commentary. It's a lot of work to take that muddy signal and refilter it... why not just skip that bullshit entirely and podcast directly on the source material? You're presenting GESC commentary to an audience which was already part of that commentary. That makes no goddamn sense. The concept of this podcast hinges on the fact that an audience outside of GESC cares about what GESC has to say. That's an awfully shaky assumption.

I strongly support using GESC Radio as a means to give the more insightful/knowledgeable posters here access to a greater audience. Even then, I'm not convinced an interested audience outside of GESC exists, but ANYTHING would be better than the current OT offerings. However, I think simply regurgitating GESC content via a less-accessible medium isn't the way to go.

Are they targetting an audience outside of the GESC? I thought this was specific for the users of GESC...

I think that's something we'll need to hash out as time goes on. Right now we're going to be running a rather loose format (basically pick some topics and see where they lead), until we find our voice so to speak. While a lot of it will probably be based around discussions going on in the GESC, Jakal does have the right of it that having discussions about discussions for the people who were the one's having the discussions seems a little too 'Yo Dawg' to be successful.

Are they targetting an audience outside of the GESC? I thought this was specific for the users of GESC...

If so, then what's the point? Will enough GESC regulars care about an audio version of something they've already read to justify the time Ghost, Mortus, etc put into this? Again, I'm not shitting on this at all... I'm motivated to see this succeed, so I want to make sure these fine gentlemen are focusing their efforts appropriately.

At the end of the day, any new media venture needs three things to succeed: an audience, quality content, and a hook to keep the audience coming back for more. We have some very knowledgable and entertaining personalities in GESC who could knock a podcast out of the park (Ben was an unlikable dick, and look at how well he did based exclusively on the merit of knowing what he was talking about), so the quality is there, but more thought needs to be put into the audience and hook. I'd like to see these guys set their sights higher than just regurgitating GESC back to GESC, because I think they have what it takes to pull it off.

If this is going to be done, it should be done right, which means a lot more thought needs to be put into this, and I'm glad to see Mortus is aware of that. Ghost, this won't be as simple as "get two dudes on skype and talk about stuff."

Are they targetting an audience outside of the GESC? I thought this was specific for the users of GESC...

If so, then what's the point? Will enough GESC regulars care about an audio version of something they've already read to justify the time Ghost, Mortus, etc put into this? Again, I'm not shitting on this at all... I'm motivated to see this succeed, so I want to make sure these fine gentlemen are focusing their efforts appropriately.

At the end of the day, any new media venture needs three things to succeed: an audience, quality content, and a hook to keep the audience coming back for more. We have some very knowledgable and entertaining personalities in GESC who could knock a podcast out of the park (Ben was an unlikable dick, and look at how well he did based exclusively on the merit of knowing what he was talking about), so the quality is there, but more thought needs to be put into the audience and hook. I'd like to see these guys set their sights higher than just regurgitating GESC back to GESC, because I think they have what it takes to pull it off.

If this is going to be done, it should be done right, which means a lot more thought needs to be put into this, and I'm glad to see Mortus is aware of that. Ghost, this won't be as simple as "get two dudes on skype and talk about stuff."

I realize that. I have some ideas as to how we will make it more compelling. Lets just see how the first episode turns out.

Pretty much any gaming-related topic worth discussing will have been dicussed at least a little bit here on GESC. So there will certainly be crossover, and if it's worth discussing certain points brought up in the forums, then why would you NOT mention it on GESC radio. It is "GESC" radio after all.

The first couple episodes don't need to be much more than having a bullet list of topics (latest games, interesting gaming news, previews, whatever), and then going through it, with tie-ins to GESC where appropriate.

A lot of this will be trial & error and seeing what people are interested in and what people AREN'T interested in.

So for those of us who game vicariously through others, will there be (in)frequent updates about how Ars clans are doing in MMOs (EVE, WoW, etc.)?

That would seem to be an interesting topic for guests. I mean, no one but the deep-in players visit the thread for each MMO, but sending an ambassador for a State of the Union and Funny Stories bit on an episode could be well done.

Yeah, we'll definitely have to figure out a different system though, because for some reason Skype decided to scale back my quality constantly, turning me into a robot. I figure Mumble will work, but we'll have to get that stuff sorted before the next episode.

Yeah, we'll definitely have to figure out a different system though, because for some reason Skype decided to scale back my quality constantly, turning me into a robot. I figure Mumble will work, but we'll have to get that stuff sorted before the next episode.